Syria, Vogue, and the Apologia of Joan Juliet Buck

It’s now 17 months since Vogue published its cover-story paean to the first lady of Syria, “Asma al-Assad: A Rose in the Desert.” Readers were treated to a profile of Asma up close, “the freshest and most magnetic of first ladies,” a dazzling paragon of understated style and philanthropic works, “on a mission to create a beacon of secularism and culture in a powder-keg region — and to put a modern face on her husband’s regime.” Asma, “glamorous, young and very chic,” was featured playing with her kids, whipping up home-cooked fondue with her jeans-clad husband, “the off-duty president,” and urging millions of Syrian youth to engage in “active citizenship.”

That was February of 2011. The following month, Syrians began engaging in a lot more active citizenship than the Assad regime evidently had in mind, rising in rebellion against the dynastic tyranny in Damascus. For 16 months now, abetted by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Syrian regime has been fighting back — with heavy weapons, arrests, torture and butchery, mutilating and murdering even children. To date, an estimated 19,000 or more Syrians have been slaughtered, and the killing continues.

Now, at long last, comes a recantation of sorts from the author of Vogue‘s “Rose in the Desert,” Joan Juliet Buck. To call it a full-throated apology would be inaccurate. Buck appears genuinely appalled by the carnage with which the Assad regime itself so swiftly and utterly discredited her labors to give it a fashion-plate human face. But her deeper sympathies seem reserved for herself, and her woefully bad luck that her Asma profile — which closed with President Bashar al-Assad, surrounded by singing children, ringing a peace bell — came out just before the monstrous character of the Assad regime hove into full view in the international headlines. (After a blitz of criticism last year, Vogue scrubbed the article from its web site, though you can still find a copy here.)

In Buck’s new version of her encounter with the Assads at home, we are now enjoined to see Buck as the victim. She tells us she set off, at the urging of her longtime editors at Vogue, to have a cultural adventure — after all, “when else would I get to see the ruins of Palmyra?” Besides, as she notes, she was taking a road to Damascus already trodden by such pioneers as Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Senator John Kerry, Sting, Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, and Francis Coppola; as well as a public relations firm hired by the Assads, Brown Lloyd James (which took care of her Syria visa).

The airheads who become celebrities, such as rock stars, movie stars, fashion gurus, etc., remain airheads even after they attain celebrity status. Their attempts to assert themselves as leaders who move people in leftist political directions arises from the Marxist theories of how to use the mass media to influence public opinion and these people are used by Marxists to carry out leftist strategies in the mass media.

Cleverness in attaining status as a celebrity is confused nowadays with intelligence.

Maybe if she was a little more concerned with the facts and a little less concerned with stupid,pigheaded,insignificant details like what clothes they were wearing and their home decor,she would have seen that the red flags going up all over the place weren’t part of some post-modern decoration scheme.Kudos to the author for holding her feet to the fire. All too often women escape responsibility and justice is not served because they successfully play the “dupe”. Well, the law has a term for it when people should have noticed something before it turned into a tragedy but didn’t, it’s called “criminal negligence”. I emphasize the criminal part,because that’s what Buck is,a criminal who is complicit in whitewashing a murderous dictator.

“I was curious…Syria gave off a toxic aura. But what was the worst that could happen? I would write a piece for Vogue that missed the deeper truth about its subject.”

Yeah, that or you would misinform millions who might want to assist the victims of this murderous regime if they knew the real facts. Of course,you didn’t care about any of that, what was REALLY important was what kind of clothes the First Lady of Satan was wearing.

Yes, the Assad regime is terrible, but the opposition supported by Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the EU and the US are much worse. Who is blowing up Churches in Syria and killing Christians? It’s not the Syrian Army, it’s the terrorists that the US is backing. The terrorists kill Christians then the Western media predictably blames the Syrian government.

Sure stinks to be lied to by a dictator’s wife, right Vogue? Just shows you how liberals are used as useful idiots by dictators and killers. The Palestinians have been doing it for years now, only the liberal mainstream media still has not caught on to that yet. You can literally “dress up” any dictator’s wife, but it doesn’t make the dictator any less of a dictator, as Assad is showing right now. What’s next for Vogue, doing a feature article on the wife of Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe? She’s both black AND a dictator’s wife. What’s not to “love?” If she dresses well, Vogue will treat her like royalty. The fools.

What Ms. Buck is really upset about is losing here job at a prestigious swanky American periodical, the pay, prestigue and invite to the elite.

Im certain if she was still employed by Vogue that she would be happily enjoying her Starbucks lattes on the way to work quietly as a cowardly, unprincipled, sycophant lickspittle. Maybe she can get a job at The New York Times?

“Credit Joan Juliet Buck that she has shed her infatuation with the “fun” first lady of Syria. But her current confessions, coming this late in the day, dwelling as they do on how she was “duped,” seem less about setting the record straight on Syria than about distancing herself from responsibility for one of the most mortally embarrassing pieces of journalism produced in recent times.”

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Let’s give credit where credit is due. At least Buck finally saw the error in her ways – kinda, sorta. That’s more than we can say for Walter Duranty, the pride of the New York Times. Despite Stalin killing people by the hundreds of thousands, Duranty continued to downplay and soften the misery Stalin was inflicting. I’m not aware of him EVER publicly recanting, although it is clear from his private conversations that he was indeed aware of the reality of what was going on.

There is a measure of truth to what she says. She wrote the article, but at the behest of others at Vogue, and none of them seem to have had any difficulties, say, in staying employed. Anna Wintour, for instance, just had dinner with the Prez himself, and still runs the magazine. It’s pretty clear that Ms. Buck has been singled out as the “fall girl” for the rest of the magazine’s editorial staff, who made the decision to send her there in the first place, and probably edited the article in the direction that they wanted.

You have to wonder about the people who will write about a Mrs. Assad or whoever, and go on about how glamorous they are. It’s as if the mobster’s wife somehow humanizes the husband, and makes him into a sort of Middle Eastern Tony Soprano. I never watched that show either, couldn’t see the appeal of “humanizing” mobsters who murder people and exploit the rest of the world to enrich themselves. Perhaps I just don’t get why these people should be admired…

Not duped, but dupes. They talked about all the cool stuff in school and didn’t pay attention to the real stuff that we nerds did. Why should I read anything by someone so woefully ignorant about basics facts of the world?

On the surface the Assads and her have a pretty good case. You can spin the story out this way.

This man, whose real love was medicine inherited a responsibility. Sure, it was not a western democracy but Syria, fractionated as it is, was not ready for that. He kept out of major war with Israel. He enforced an achievable level of religious and civil rights (except for Jews but they do not count), and economy was not terrible.

He had to make some tough calls to keep away the Al Queda types but the proof is now in the pudding. Soon as he loses control they come in and this results.

His wife lived the same as most US first ladies. She got nothing but positive feedback for her visits to schools and favorite causes. She is stunning in her outfits and charming as a woman can be.

They must be in a state of confusion now. They thought they were beloved protectors of Syria. Keeping their fragile state alive in a sea of adversity. Where did they go wrong?

I am the last person to have any good wishes for Assad. He missed his chances, he blew it. I do think that he is not going down easy. Syria is screwed and everyone who has anything to worry about that is screwed in the process.

There are no good choices now for anyone. Assads are going away and a new Syria does not look better.

Syrais is about the most repressive country in the world, outside of North Korea. As far as “Fortress Israel” is concerned, you have no idea how much power the unelected left has in this country, party funded by foreign powers, with the EU. Just hope we don’t do something stupid like give up the Golan.

Sure it is but the point I was trying to make is that guys like Assad live in a bubble of their own creation surrounded by syncophants. My impression is that he is not an act. He really thinks he is doing the right thing for Syria. It is easy to see how she got taken in by them.

Maybe the silly dupee will learn from this, and kick off the yoke of progressive idiocy? Of course, if she does, she’ll have to give up any hope of working for most of the traditional liberal media, which is now moving even further left. But up the up-side, she’d be mimicing some illustrious neo-lights of the center right, like David Horowitz, David Mamet, and Eric Allen Bell, all of whom seem to be fairly successful in their writing careers, these days.

“Besides, as she notes, she was taking a road to Damascus already trodden by such pioneers as Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Senator John Kerry, Sting, Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, and Francis Coppola; as well as a public relations firm hired by the Assads, Brown Lloyd James (which took care of her Syria visa).”

The fact that she was following down the same road as the above mentioned should have given her pause.

This ‘confession’ doesn’t redeem her. It permanently discredits her. She saw what was going on and said nothing, as long as she was being paid by Vogue. To say now that she was ‘duped’ isn’t an excuse. It proves she is incapable of intelligent reporting. Let her go find a job at Starbucks.
And who looks to Vogue for anything resembling news?

As soon as this story came out, I stopped buying Vogue and encouraged others to do the same. Anyone who follows foreign policy knows that the Assad Regime has been murderous for decades. They have also spread their murderous ways to Lebanon in an attempt to destroy Democracy in that country. This was a despicable article and the only reaction on the author’s part should have been a complete apology and no excuses.

To ensure that the cyanide capsules that he and the newly minted Mrs. Hitler would soon take were effective, he first tried it out on his beloved Alsatian dog Blondi. Worked like a charm, according to reports.

one of the most mortally embarrassing pieces of journalism produced in recent times

Another commenter already mentioned Walter Duranty of NYT. It occurs to this reader that Buck’s piece for Vogue and the present article work together to put Duranty’s crime in the shade. I doubt that is Ms. Rosett’s intention, but let us not forget. Stahlin, whose influence on American culture from the 30s onward is far greater, makes Assad look like a Sunday school teacher. I recommend the book Bloodlands by Timothy Snyder (Basic Books, 2010), and the essay “The Legacy of the 30s” by Robert Warshow (from Commentary, December 1947, now in The Immediate Experience by Warshow, Harvard Press, 2001).